


On a Cloth Untrue, with a Twisted Cue  (Loose Affiliation, Part One)

by spuffyduds



Series: Loose Affiliation [1]
Category: due South
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, Ghosts, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 21:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The sexual tension is unresolved and unconfessed, in this one.  Set during Victoria's Secret Part One.</p>
    </blockquote>





	On a Cloth Untrue, with a Twisted Cue  (Loose Affiliation, Part One)

**Author's Note:**

> The sexual tension is unresolved and unconfessed, in this one. Set during Victoria's Secret Part One.

Ray's stuffed two coasters and a matchbook under one leg to shim up the pool table and it's a lot better, but he's still not sure it's even. Not that you can tell, what with having to hold the cues at about an eighty-five degree angle unless you happen to be making a shot from the doorway, and the guys are giving him shit about it and about the lack of food and the mysterious no-show of the Big Red One. And there's something familiar about it, something (_party and someone's not here and there's something wrong with the food_) deja-vu-ish that he really doesn't want to remember.

But he then he _does_ remember; leans against the wall and watches Huey sink the cue ball again, hopes no one notices that he probably looks kinda sick. Because: tenth birthday, Ma was pulling an extra shift at the department store, making up for the old man's gambling; and the man himself had been entrusted with picking up Ray's birthday cake. He didn't show and didn't show, and the boys were all shooting each other with rubber-band guns and running around the house crashing into the furniture, and Ray was starting to worry that something was gonna get broken unless a grownup showed up soon to crack down on them, but he couldn't tell them to cool it himself without sounding like a pussy. So then his dad threw open the door and Ray was so relieved and so happy for about five seconds before he realized Pop was three sheets to the wind, again (_what did that even MEAN_?) and then he looked at the cake when his dad thunked it on the table and it said, "Happy Birthday Rae."

He couldn't help himself, he knew he sounded whiny and pathetic and he still couldn't help saying, "Pop. You didn't check it. They got it wrong. Pop. That's the _girl_ spelling." His dad gave him a disgusted look and said, "Put on a fucking skirt, then," and tromped upstairs to sleep it off.

The guys all thought that was really funny.

They're not laughing out loud now, anyway. Just a lot of eye-rolling when they have to hold their cues practically upright. Or when Ray passes around the crappy little jar of capers.

After they've all gone, with a lot of mumbled, "Thanks, man. _Great_ game," that tells him no one's coming back anytime soon, he goes back into the ex-dining room, tries to picture if there's any way to rotate the table, make it work better. Although even if he figures out a way, he can't move the damn thing alone. He sets the eight ball on it, lets go, watches it meander; shit, it _is_ still off-balance.

"Or maybe _you're_ just a little bent," a voice from behind him says. And he whirls to see his dad; of course, perfect, just the finishing touch this evening needed.

"Go away," he says, and then what his dad actually _said_ sinks in, and he stupidly opens the conversation back up instead of just ignoring this hallucination or ghost or demon or whatever the hell it is, stupidly says, "What are you _talking_ about?"

"I've seen the way you stare at him."

"Pop. He's wearing a bright red uniform and a hat the size of a manhole cover, and he dives out of third-story windows a couple of times a week. _Everybody_ stares at him." Ray thinks that was a clever comeback and then winces, realizing that actually the clever thing would have been to pretend not to know who he was talking about.

"Yeah," says his dad. "So, how's your girlfriend? The one you kissed a couple of times before she went back to her job in another state? The one you're still pining over so you never have to ask any other woman out? Funny how that worked out, huh?"

"Shut up," Ray says. And for a while he manages not to respond to the old man. He fidgets with the matchbook and the coasters under the table leg, places a ball on the table to check, watches it roll, wiggles the matchbook. Over and over again. Gives up on ever getting the table straight by himself. Picks up his cue, spins it in his hand, tries to find a spot in the room where he can draw it back all the way. And all the while his dad keeps up this filthy monologue of the way Ray looks at Fraser, the things Ray would probably like to do to Fraser—"Or I guess you'd like _him_ to do that to _you_, huh, kid? You're more a catcher than a pitcher, right?"—and Ray just keeps his mouth shut, because answering him never works, answering him just gets you a backhand across the face because you don't talk back to your father.

Until Pops leans in close (_and Ray can smell the bourbon; can you smell ghosts?_) and says, "Hey, son, maybe you should get that skirt after all," and Ray spins around, swings the pool cue with everything he's got at the old man's head. And of course there's nobody there, he stumbles from the lack of impact where he expected it and again when the cue hits the doorframe and breaks in half, splinters flying into the kitchen. He's off balance, the table is off balance, the whole fucking world, and he grabs his jacket, slams out the door to go to Benny's because _Benny always makes him feel better_ because Benny needs to give him his fucking money back. Yeah.

 

\--END--

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Freak Out](https://archiveofourown.org/works/562286) by [ButterflyGhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost)




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